Love WILL Find A Way
by Sinister Scribe
Summary: The god of love enlists the help of a dissillusioned fanfiction writer to help get his most difficult couple together. Absolute shameless fun. Review please.
1. Chapter 1

Part I

**Part I**

Sinclair sat at her desk and frowned at her laptop. The compact machine whirred quietly on the scarred wood of the desk in her study though the sound could not be heard over the pounding rhythm of the Marilyn Manson track '_Heart Shaped Glasses'. _Sinclair tugged at a pointed ear and then scrubbed the heel of her hand over the tip of one deep green and black striped horn. Tawny eyes scowled at the screen from behind heavy black and red striped spectacle frames. Her long tail twitched in agitation and chains clinked as they dripped from her tight back knee length shorts when she shifted one hoofed foot over the other to remove a scrap of lint caught in her hoof.

All was not going well.

She tugged at her short flag of mahogany hair and sighed cavernously.

It was _mocking_ her.

That tiny black line flashing halfway down the page, a blurb of text before it and a painfully blank page beyond. Sinclair slumped forward and her horns bashed into the desk with a crunching thump. There were several similar indentations all across this edge of the wooden table. The Ikea brand furniture really had not withstood her abuse all that well. She was a big girl with clumsy habits and she and flimsy did not mix well. She had hoped the plastic coated wood could withstand her particular brand of heavy use but it was already fraying at the edges. Screws loosening, plastic peeling back to reveal the grainy mulch underneath. Not real wood at all.

Story of her life.

Sinclair rocked her head to the side and sighed again.

It was hopeless. She'd lost the magic. There was nothing else for it. The characters refused to come. Plots refused to coalesce and the only thing that interested her these days was more sleep.

She could hear the cursor's silent laugh with every little taunting blink on her screen. She scowled and sat up again. Forcing herself to reread what she had just written. Every word like a pulled tooth without anaesthesia. Every sentence stilted. Every paragraph limp.

"_I am…drugged to the gills with one of the more powerful aphrodisiacs known to man, needing my next fix so badly I can't even hold this cup properly, using the most unsuitable man on the planet to see to my needs on this matter, we had a fight, he told me I might be pregnant with a child that I'm not ready for and he doesn't want, we fought and he stormed out…which incidentally brings us back to the tremors. You?" Cuddy smiled in faux brightness and hunched her shoulders cheerfully as if they were sharing a girly chat on a sunny afternoon. _

_Tawny settled one elbow on the arm on the couch and adopted a similar pose. _

"_Oh, nothing much, I have recently moved to the States to try and escape the memories of my previous employment with a certain branch of the government in which I was lied to…captured, tortured and watched my team massacred in front of me. I have spent the last six months recovering and trying to put my shattered self back together…unfortunately it would seem that the one other thing I excel at in this world, my skills as a surgeon, are becoming the very antithesis to my recovery." Her voice hollowed out until there was precious little substance to it. Cuddy watched her, her heart going out to the other woman, but there were still a lot of gaps to fill in. Cuddy leaned forward, elbows on her knees and spoke quietly but with force._

What complete and utter fucking, unmitigated head-shite that had leaked out of her ears and infested her infernal computer.

"You know, it has potential."

"Fuck!"

Sinclair twitched so hard in surprise that she found herself catapulted sideways off her stolen dining room chair and down into the gap between the desk and the over flowing bookcase that took up two thirds of the tiny study. Her treble six tee shirt was rucked up over her belly, her hair was caught on her horns and one of her hooves was being bent the wrong way in a painful-to-even-get-it-out-of-that-position way. Struggling back onto her seat, Sinclair growled at the intruder.

"Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?"

"Folk's call me E."

Sinclair looked him over. "Uh-huh, what does that stand for? Excrement?"

"Careful, mortal. You don't know who you're dealing with." The man narrowed his eyes at her. They were a lightening blue colour, offset by a halo of the most perfect gold ringlets Sinclair had ever seen outside of a Raphaelite painting. He was not overly tall, but taller than her, with a slim build and…yes, those were wings folded neatly along his spine. He wore a pair of khaki beach shorts, sandals and a pink polo shirt with a bow and arrow emblazoned over his left pectoral. Sinclair pursed her lips. It took a very confidant man to wear pink and she still thought they all looked like idiots.

Sinclair sniffed in a calming breath and smoothed her tee shirt down again. She finger combed her hair and resigned herself to this latest trip that her imaginative powers were taking her on. The last jaunt had involved her getting VERY up close and personal with none other than Sirius Black.

"Fine, _E_. Why don't you enlighten me as to who, what or why you are?" Sinclair did her best to channel her inner Stark and thought she pulled it off rather well. She was practically lord of the dead.

"I," he spread his arms, wings unfurling in mother of pearl shades, refracting rainbows of light, "Am Eros, Lord of Love."

This, unsurprisingly for a singleton like Sinclair, did not make a big impression. In fact, it kind of just ricocheted harmlessly away into the ether. She arched a brow and twitched an ear.

"Yup, and I'm Shirley-fucking Bassey, you wanna get out of my study now?"

Eros frowned. This was obviously not going to plan for him. "You need to help me." He told her and she snorted.

"Yeeeaaaahhh…I dinnae think so." Sinclair spun on one hoof, heaved the study door open with a hip, shoulder and grunt and clattered up the three steps onto the main level of the sprawling bungalow in which she lived.

"Why not? You write romance all the time. You're good at it." Eros trailed after her, wings compacted in to accommodate the narrow hallway. He navigated past what appeared to be half the contents of a bedroom, a cat litter tray, a bed frame without a mattress and finally an aged Irish Setter that was apparently doing its best to emulate a snoring rug.

"Noooo, I write fluff and I write smut. There is a fundamental difference." Sinclair waggled a finger at him and headed for the fridge. All this arguing was making her hungry. She yanked ingredients for a sandwich from the cool interior and began to put together a doorstep masquerading as a cheese sandwich. She pulled an ice cold bottle of Diet Coke from the fridge, tucked it under her arm and headed for the living room. "Besides, what have _you_ ever done for _me?" _She asked him pointedly and then went on to explain before Mr Pretty-Face could even try.

"You have managed to make me completely untouchable to all men that are not raving lunatics or mamma's boys, they either look right through me or run in the opposite direction because I'm too damn frightening; what few laughable incidents have made composite of my 'love life' are so mind-numbingly embarrassing that I would quite happily drill them from my brain if only Black & Decker did a drill bit long enough and the last time a bloke paid me a compliment he was so bent he could have been mistaken for a Kirby grip at ten yards and I'm pretty damn sure it was intended to be ironic anyway. You see where I'm headed with this?"

"You want a boyfriend?" Eros took the armchair, moving the sleeping Siamese/Tabby cross to sit purring on his lap (little traitor) and looked at her quizzically.

"No!" Sinclair chewed her mouthful of cheese and bread hurriedly and then swallowed with a gulp. "I would very much like for you to continue doing what you've been doing for the past twenty years." She gestured flamboyantly with her diet coke bottle and nearly splashed it liberally over the carpet. "IGNORE ME."

"What are you afraid of?" Eros, king of emotion, reacted to passion. Even if it was directed to negative poles, he reacted to it still. He leapt to his feet, standing in front of her, standing over her. She bridled at that.

"I'm not afraid of anything." Good gods, she thought she was telling the truth. "Least of all, something a trumped up little cherub like you can dream up."

Something blazed in the boy's eyes. Something wild and frightening and slightly manic. His hand snapped up, latching around her throat, squeezing just a fraction too hard.

"Remember my brother, mortal, scholar of myth, twister of words. Remember my other half whom would not be so kind to you."

"So it all comes down to threats, old one?" A sneer twisted her lips. Even with the hand of the first real god around her throat. The oldest of powers, born when the mammals were, the reason humans walk on two legs, talk to one another, the reason they survive above all others. "You'd squash me like a bug for not doing your bidding? And they call you _love."_ She mocked harshly, that mouth of hers firing to the last.

He glared at her hard, eyes burning with that terrifying power again and then a slow smile tilted his lips. He had the supreme confidence that only an Olympian can successfully pull off and then he informed her coolly.

"No, I'd just have you do my bidding anyway." He lifted his perfect hand and snapped his fingers.

Everything flashed white.

**Sinister Scribe**

House sat on his couch and sank into the plush leather. He flipped the channels with a flick of his thumb over the faded buttons of the TV remote. He stared at the flat screen without really taking in whatever was playing over it. His eyes wandered to the piano and he briefly considered levering himself up off the couch to play a few. He rolled the beer bottle in his hand, watching the dregs and decided against it. Smelled too much like effort.

Thoughts rolled around in his head like loose marbles and finally settled into the familiar groove that they had been wearing for the past few months.

Cuddy.

House sighed and finished his beer. A vicodin chaser rounded it off and his eyes swivelled back to the piano again. He'd really rather switch to piano and scotch over popcorn TV and half flat beer. He finally worked up the wherewithal to haul himself to his feet, flip his cane down onto the floor and hobble stiffly to the piano. He settled himself onto the cushioned bench and trailed his fingers light as a whisper over the keys. He struck a chord, sharp and thrumming, it echoed through the room. Strident and bold. Like a certain dean he knew.

House huffed out a breath. This dance was getting more and more pathetic as the days went on. He kept thinking of her, wanting her, knowing it and doing nothing. Sometimes he felt like he just needed…his finger trailed a few more notes…a good kick up the ass if he were honest. He kept _meaning_ to do something about the 'Cuddy Thing' as he had come to call it, but he just never…followed through.

_FLASH!_

"Jesus!" House flinched away from the miniature lightening strike in the vicinity of his couch and blinked rapidly in order to clear the lurid green spots dancing in front of his eyes.

"Ugh…not quite." A low feminine voice replied to the question he hadn't asked yet. "Damn…those cross dimensional jumps give me the wiggins." Scottish accent, muffled from behind the smoking couch. The entire room smelled of struck matches.

"What. The. Fuck?" House snarled to his feet and stomped over to the couch to peer over it. He stilled at what he saw on the other side.

It…she, turned out to be a young woman, maybe in her early twenties, if that. She looked fairly average. Short brown hair styled shorter at the back and longer to her jaw line at the front, plain to pretty face, small curvy build and hazel eyes.

She was also smoking.

Not in the deep drag and blowing rings kind of way, but in a her skin was actually giving off vapour kind of way. She coughed and more smoke billowed from her lungs. She held a bottle of diet cola in one hand and a toasted cheese sandwich in the other. She dropped the latter on the floor and drank the former with a deep gulp.

"Fuck." She croaked.

She rolled her head on the floor to take a look at him and stiffened in surprise, tawny eyes widening. She bolted to her feet and stared at him looking like she'd just been pole-axed. Reaching out one finger and prodded him in the chest.

Hard.

"Ohmigawdyou'rereal!" She spoke all in the one word and on the inhale, jumping back in one fluid motion, smacking into the wall. House lifted his cane and pinned her there with it. He took out his Vicodin bottle and carefully scrutinised the use by date on the side of the cap. First time he'd ever worried about getting a bad batch.

House stared at the bottle, then the girl and then back to the vicodin bottle. This was _trippy. _

"I mean, well, you're not real. You can't be real…" Her face lit up into a sudden smile. "Unless this is the set, and you're really Hugh Laurie and the only thing I have to worry about is a pissed off God of love and the possibility that everybody now knows I'm really half a faun?" She was nodding encouragingly and House looked up from his Vicodin bottle again (this time from scrutinising the side effects section) and shook his head. Her face fell and she shook her head too. "No?"

She scrubbed a hand over her face. "Okay, Sin, get a hold of yourself. How bad can this be? I mean, you're only in an alternate universe." Here she looked heavenwards and growled low. "_Again."_ She finger combed her hair and began to pace, her bare feet padding against his floor. House thought this was all rather odd, possibly Freudian and definitely to do with his problems relating to women.

She stopped suddenly, fingers splaying in a 'stop everything' motion and looking around the room as if something had just occurred to her. She looked down at her feet and squeaked. Arched her back, looking over her shoulder and scrabbling at the waist band at the back of her shorts. Her hands went frantically to her ears next and finally clapped on her forehead.

"No, no, no, no, noooooo…" She whined and jogged to the mirror hanging up by the door and stared into it. "Aw, maaaaaan, my HORNS!?" She leant closer and inspected her face. "Why did he have to take my horns…?" She thumped her head against the mirror and sighed misty against the reflective glass.

"Mind explaining who you are and what the hell you're doing in my apartment?" House chimed in helpfully in the hopes of prompting her into getting the hell out.

"Don't mind me…just a…_figment_ of your imagination." She huffed against the glass and then turned to stare at him. Hard. Then around at the apartment.

"So this is the home of one of the most fucked up bastard doctors on the planet who happens to know nothing ABOUT fanfiction, ships or the _totally_ hot sex that he's supposed to be having with a certain someone right now…" Here she glared at him and House perked up.

"Sex with who? Is it…?"

She was up in his grill in a flash. "You say Cameron and I will PERSONALLY projectile vomit all over your shiny baby grand." She gritted at him. "Frome here!"

House double checked the distance between the 'figment' and the aforementioned musical instrument. He pursed his lips. Helluva trick shot. He caught up with what she was talking about.

"Cameron? Eew."

She looked over him, arms folded over a rack that rivalled Cuddy's in the ogle-ability charts and snorted.

"You may live. Now I just gotta figure out how to get out of here." She began looking around the room and waved an idle hand at House. "I'm all a dream, go back tae yer drinking and drugs and this nasty little hallucination will be gone before you know it." She lifted a few pillows from the couch, put them back down, checked under a medical journal, behind the table by the door, in the sleeve of his jacket.

"Come oan, E, gimme something to blow this popsicle stand with." She rummaged further and House's eye caught on something pink on the floor. He stooped and lifted it. She said she was a hallucination, but this paper sure as hell wasn't and, he got the feeling neither was her name.

"You called Sinclair, by any chance?" He demanded of her and she spun slowly on one heel.

"Aye…" She drawled the word out long and slow. Very Shrek.

"I think, this is yours." He held the folded paper out to her and she eyed it warily.

"Sure it's not yours?" She asked hopefully.

"Do I look like a pink kind of guy?" He arched a brow at her.

"Well, there was that suit fiasco in the beginning of season three." She stalked across the room and snatched the paper from him, talking at him like he should view that as an insult. All he knew was that he had no idea what she was talking about. He watched her rip the heart shaped wax seal holding the folded paper closed, unfold it from an envelope into a letter and scan the neatly sprawling writing curving across the page. Her lips parted and her eyes grew wide in horror.

She crumpled the page up and threw it at his chest. "This is all your fault you emotionally constipated TWAT!" She spun away from him, fists clenched white knuckled at her side and threw back her head.

"EEEEERRRROOOOOOOSSS!!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's the second part. Written all in one and I feel barforific so it might not be the best. Updates shall be slow as my computer is in the laptop hospital and I won't be seeing it for at LEAST a week. **

**SOB**

**So, yeah, I've taken my bro's comp hostage and I'm using that instead. Which limits writing time somewhat. Leaf me sympathy reviews. **

**Ciaoooooo. **

**Part II**

"I've decided, you're a stalker."

Sinclair, frowned, eyes tightly shut and squirmed in her sleep. She was SOOOO not ready to join the world of the wakeful yet. She scrubbed a hand over her face and wondered what the hell had disturbed her not so peaceful slumber. Sleep on a floor for two months straight? No problem. Ask her to kip for one night on a bloody leather couch and she felt like she'd been folded six ways and left for a chew toy. She blinked wearily and opened her eyes.

To see two brilliant blue orbs boring right into her from not even three inches away.

Now, those who did not know that Sinclair had NEVER woken up in this fashion before, might have deemed her next act as a slight over reaction. But if one took into account that the diminutive author was unaccustomed to waking with a grumpy lanky diagnostician practically on her lap and close enough that even she could see every weathered line in his face…well, he deserved a good slap anyway.

"Sonova…! What the hell was that for?!" House hauled himself up off the floor and glared at her.

"Scuuuuuze me for having personal space!" Sinclair glowered at him, fumbled over his shoulder for her glasses on the table and jammed them down onto her nose with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. "Didn't your mother ever tell you never to wake a Scotswoman before she's damn good and ready?!" She smacked him over the head again.

"Hey! What was that one for?"

"Because I felt like it." Sinclair was not a morning person. Ever since being born at 7:35am on a cold march morning, she had been endeavouring to catch up on the lost sleep. She wouldn't even begin o get friendly until her first hit of Diet Coke, considering that House only kept beer, scotch or questionable tap water, Sinclair didn't think his morning was going to be getting better any time soon. She'd had a bad enough time as it was last night, playing the trippy hallucination until he'd gotten drunk and finally staggered off to bed at around four. Geez, didn't the man need more sleep than this. She felt like she'd barely shut her eyes and she was being rudely awoken again. As far as she was aware, he still thought she was a figment of his drug addled imagination.

"Geez, people think I'm anti-social." House grumbled and levered himself up onto the couch with barely a wince.

There went that theory then. No more hiding as a hallucination for her.

Sinclair saw the wince and grimaced, her mother would heave one of her heavy sighs if she had seen her second born hitting a cripple. Jackass or no. Sinclair's moral code was thin, but it wasn't THAT anorexic. He sat next to her and she glared at him out the corner of her eye.

"What?"

"I said, before you so rudely concussed me, that I believe you're my latest stalker." He spoke casually, like potential crazies inhabiting his place was no big. Sinclair shuddered. She couldn't imagine a stranger in her house. She did not share well and was a recluse by nature, her mother told her she had an attitude problem. Sinclair actually did NOT have an attitude problem. She liked her attitude just fine, fuck you very much, it was everyone ELSE that had the bloody problem.

"You flatter yourself." Sinclair drawled at him, drawing the sheet she'd had to steal from him around her waste. She wasn't wearing much, girly boxers black with orange skulls on them and a burnt orange tank top with a winged hard blazing across her chest. A chest that House's eyes had not failed to notice. Sinclair registered the attention but didn't object. What would be the point with him? "You're not shmexy enough for me to stalk. Hugh Jackman wearing nothing but a smile and his divorce papers? Sure, I could do that. You? Dr McAnti-hero? Dinnae think so." She snorted at him.

"Explain to me again how you know so much about my life then." House demanded, all that attention really was quite irking, focused solely on her as it was now. Sinclair shifted in her seat and glared at him. More because she felt she should, as a show of strength to his warped perception of things, than out of actual invective.

"I don't know a LOT about your life, just the basic facts." She shrugged. "Anyone could find that out, you're world renowned after all." She rubbed at her eyes under her glasses, they were gritty this morning. "You're intriguing but, actually, you've recently become less of an interest to me." She needed her meds.

And her diet coke. Don't forget the diet coke.

He looked mildly offended.

"You break into my place and I'm not even INTERESTING to you anymore."

"First of all," Sinclair's finger shot up and nearly removed one of his shiny blue eyes. "I did not break in, I was forced in." A second finger joined the first and threatened the other eye. House now had a vaguely cross-eyed appearance and had to shake his head to get his vision back to normal. "Second of all, 'less interested' is a comparative thing. You used to be my sole reason for writing, now you're not. I have other people to tell stories for now."

"So, you're a journalist? This is all some weird kind of scoop."

"Ye know, for a genius, yer pretty fucking stupid." The Scots came out in her when she wanted to offend, or if she was pissed off. Oddly enough, House noticed those two events seemed to occur in concert frequently. "I'm not something so…petty as a _journalist_ I'm a WRITER. I write novels. Or, at least, I will as soon as the first one is finished." She shuffled to her feet and stood over him. "Big fucking difference."

"Okay then," House was getting a little pissy himself now. "If you're not here to stalk me, you're not here to write about me and you're not even INTERESTED in me, why _are_ you here?"

"Because I was forced to come here." She was looking anywhere but at him and he had a sudden inkling. She didn't want to tell him why she was really here and she didn't want to lie. At least not as a first choice. He could use that.

"By who? What?" He prodded. "I could just find that pink note from last night." He shrugged casually smirking at her. Point to him.

"Good luck with that, I ate it." She snorted. His face fell, she was serious. Match to her.

She was silent a moment, searching for the right words to weasel out of telling the real truth. "Forces beyond my…control." She finally allowed. At his continuing stare, she finally relented. "He calls himself E, he negotiates…partnerships and he wants me to help him broker a particularly tough deal." House tilted his head, she was smiling now and he had the sudden impression that this was all a metaphor for something. Damn it was annoying. Was it this irritating when he did it? It had better be. He didn't want to think he'd gone to the effort of all those sports metaphors and not at least got somebody mildly annoyed.

"Aye, these two…parties have had a long working relationship but need to take it to a closer partnership in order for the correct ripple effect to occur."

House sneezed loudly and obnoxiously. "Sowwy," he spoke through a falsely stuffy nose. "I'b awergic to buwwshit."

_SMACK!_

"You gonna stop doing that?!" He ducked and covered when it looked like her hand was going to swing around on the return trip but her jaw tightened and she left him alone. "I could hit back, you know." He grumbled, rubbing his head.

"Aye, ye could." She hitched the sheet higher at her hips and fingered his record collection. These were always just props in the show. It was kind of weird to see everything so…_real. _"But you won't. you're an unmitigated prick at times, but you're not a bully and you don't hit girls."

"Maybe when you learn some manners." She grunted. "And I'm telling the truth. At least as much of it as YOU are getting to know. The long and the short is that E ain't letting me mosey on homeward bound until this merger is done and dusted. I gotta have their word on it and then I'm free to go."

House blinked at her.

"So what the hell does all this have to do with me?"

She lifted on shoulder and did a quick calculation in her head. What were the chances of her getting through this without him finding out?

Nearly nil.

She huffed out a heavy sigh.

"You're part of the deal."

"In what way?" A wary look had entered his eyes.

She lifted her shoulder in another shrug. "I dunno yet. These things unfold as they will." Well, that was _kinda _true.

He scowled.

"I'm a take it as it comes kinda gal."

Bigger scowl.

"Ye know, the wind will change and your face will stick like that."

Eyebrows raised. "Cool."

Now an orbital eye roll from Sinclair. She glared around the room and searched for a change of subject. She needed to get this ball rolling. Sooner she got 'The Word' from the soon to be happy couple, she was a dust shape on the horizon, dude. Her eyes landed on the clock. A little after ten. She spun on a bare heel and looked him over, jeans on, band tee shirt clean, shirt buttoned squint over it, biker jacket thrown over the back of the couch and she thought she could see the strap of his rucksack around the edge of the coffee table. He was ready to roll.

"Let's go to the hospital." She said brightly. Smiling even. That put him on guard better than any growl would.

"As in 'we' go to the hospital?" He gestured between them.

"I've not got cooties. Been inoculated and everything." She said in a condescending tone that only House could have done better.

House looked around the apartment, searching for an excuse. His eyes landed on his jacket and he smirked. "You're not dressed and I'm already late…" House's words died in his throat when he turned around and saw Sinclair standing in the middle of the living room, sheet cast aside and fully dressed. Blood red tight denim shorts, a gold chain looping off one side, black snakeskin heels that out teetered Cuddy on the slut-puppy factor, tight black tee with a snarling silver tiger's face on it, black painted lips, sleek hair instead of bed-mussed and black eye shadow with silver glitter lining her eyes and sooty lashes.

"Problem solved." She hefted a red bike helmet decorated like some kind of bird, a phoenix, he mused and preceded him to the door. Taking a blood red leather jacket from the hook, a jacket that had most definitely not been there a second ago and threw open the door. "Well, what's the matter, you see something logic can't explain?" She was _daring _him the little…oh, she was good, he'd give her that.

He was better.

"Nope, peachy keen." He hobbled past her and out the door, locking it behind them when she clopped out after him and looked up and down the street as if she'd never seen one before. Her finger traced over the letters 221B on the door while he juggled keys, cane and helmet until she snagged the helmet from him and trotted to the bike.

"Hurry up, I've never been on one of these before. Does it go fast?"

A wicked grin played over House's lips and he tried to tamp it down.

Revenge was sweet.


	3. Chapter 3

Part III

**sorry i've been away so long, computer's still screwy and i have to suffer with my dad's naff one. **

**this hasn't been beta'd please ignore mistakes, just updating lightening quick coz i gotta dash for dinner**

**ciaooo**

**Part III**

Sinclair hopped off the bike with nary a stumble and whipped off her helmet. House resisted the urge to grind his teeth as he leant back from the handle bars and pulled his own helmet off. She smoothed her fingers through her hair and perched her glasses back onto her nose, this time heavy rimmed black and gold houndstooth design, she looked up at the hospital and eyed everything with an equal consuming interest. House fought down his irritation with her, he had broken several speed limits, mounted three sidewalks and ran at least half a dozen red lights and all she had done was laugh. The girl had virtually no self preservation.

"Well? Ye coming, or am I to create havoc all on my lonesome?" She meandered towards the hospital and House hurriedly dismounted the bike. "I mean, I've yet to meet the team, that reminds me, is it the ducklings or the test tubettes?"

House lurched along beside her and frowned in silent question.

"Cameron and Chase or Taub, Kutner and Thirteen? Foreman's pretty much been a constant. Like you but a bit more Film Noir, no?"

House smirked despite himself, she could be pretty funny sometimes.

"You mean, you know why I chose to become a doctor but not who my juniors are?" He rattled a Vicodin from his pocket and threw it back dry. She wrinkled her nose at the habit but chose not to comment.

"My information dries up between seasons, what can I say?" She dug one hand into the back pocket of her red shorts and clopped along beside him. In the three inch heels she actually reached his shoulder.

"What are these seasons you keep talking about?" He had learned that it was nearly useless to try, but he kept trying to pry information from her.

"My information comes in…packs. Called seasons usually because they cover only three or four months out of the year."

"You're a pretty good liar, you know."

"I know." She walked though the red leaf motif doors of Princeton-Plainsboro and clapped her hands together, rubbing them excitedly. "So, this is where it all happens, huh?"

"It's just a hospital." House shrugged.

"Not to you it isn't. Your safe haven. The only place that will employ you. The only place that lets you get away with the shit that you do." She grinned at him, looking back and forth and then wrinkling her nose. "Ich, has that real hospital smell too." She held a hand over her nose and mouth as if trying not to breathe it in. House was faintly amused by this antic but his amusement died when a voice echoed out across the lobby.

"House!"

"Oh look!" Sinclair practically bounced with excitement, which drew a couple of glances from passing interns. After all, it was a very low cut and tight tee shirt. "More pals!"

"It's after eleven, where the hell have you been? You were supposed to sign in to the clinic half an hour ago…and can I help you with something?" Cuddy whirled on Sinclair, who had been circling the older woman, looking her up and down with careful scrutiny as she unleashed her invective on House.

"Nope. Nothing at all. I'm just beginning to realise I'm going to be doing a lot of leg work on this case." She pointed at Cuddy's feet. "Those Jimmy Choo?"

"Prada…" Cuddy frowned at the girl once more and then planted her hands on her hips turning back to House. "Well?"

"I had…stuff." House glanced at Sinclair and fudged when she didn't appear to be forthcoming with some more of her smooth-as-silk-on-the-spot lies.

"Stuff?" Cuddy arched a brow at him and opened her mouth again, no doubt to add on to his sentence in Clinical purgatory when Sinclair stepped up and thrust out her hand like a weapon at Cuddy.

"I would be 'Stuff'. More commonly known as 'Short Stuff' or 'Squirt'." She shook Cuddy's hand hard enough to make House wonder for the safety of Cuddy's shoulder joint. He held his breath, wondering what Sinclair was about to unleash next. "Stupid nicknames I know, but hey, better than something weird like, oh, say Party-mmf!" House's hand clapped down over Sinclair's mouth and she glared at him.

"She's my baby cousin…twice removed." House muttered on an ingratiating smile. "It's 'Take An Obscure Relative To Work Day' didn't you get the memo? Ow!" House yanked his hand away from Sinclair's mouth. He glared at her.

"What? Like I want the hand that pays for your hookers anywhere near me!" Sinclair scrubbed a hand over her mouth and caught the flicker of shock over Cuddy's face. House had the decency to at least blush faintly.

"Oh, you didn't know about…ah, hell." Sinclair whirled and slapped House hard on the arm. He yelped and backed away from her. "Well done, fuckwit!" She snapped at him.

"Hey, it's you that's dragging all my personal details out in the lobby!" He growled back.

"Kids, kids, KIDS!" Cuddy finally interrupted their bickering. "Why don't you go get to work and you…why are you here again?" Cuddy directed at Sinclair. House gladly took the excuse and slunk off to the comparative safety of Clinic without further protest, still nursing the bite on his hand.

Sin briefly considered her options. She needed to manipulate Cuddy, but she knew even less about the woman that she knew about Wilson (who she was definitely not looking forward to meeting). "Lost a bet." She blurted. "The family know we hate each other so a bet was kind of made at the last reunion and we lost so we have to spend the day together as a forfeit." That sounded suitably Housian she thought.

"So, I've to put my hospital in danger by putting up with not one, but TWO of the House clan?" Cuddy was actually quite intimidating up close like this. Even though they stood at equal height in their heels and Sinclair was wider with her distinctly curvier build, Cuddy had a cold look in her eyes.

"No, I'll be good!" Sinclair smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner and nodded enthusiastically. "I'll even keep an eye on him for you. His suffering is my entertainment." Sinclair added another convincing smile and thought she might have gone too far when Cuddy frowned at her. "Well, not in a weirdo masochistic kind of way, obviously, but more a…"

"Save it. I have a meeting at three with the board of directors about him. Keep him busy between three and five and you can do whatever you want for the rest of the day." Cuddy saw an opportunity to bargain and took it.

"Okay, but I get something in return. Hey, babysitting his grouchiness over there is not my idea of happy-happy-fun-time." Sinclair pointed out when Cuddy narrowed her eyes at the girl. "If I make him behave till five o'clock, then I get to play a game and you have to participate."

"A game?" Cuddy frowned. This kid was weirder than even House was.

"Yeah, a game of my choosing, and I have your unconditional surrender to the rules."

Cuddy mulled this over, did she really need House's behaviour to be good badly enough to make a deal with the words 'unconditional' and 'surrender' as part of the closing argument?

"WHADYA MEAN THERE'S NO RED ONES!?"

Cuddy winced at the sound of House's bellow and Sinclair ruthlessly pressed her advantage.

"Just think, no outbursts, no lawsuits, just agreeable House for an entire day." Sinclair dangled it like the carrot she knew it was and Cuddy worried her lip.

"What guarantee do I have that you can pull this off?"

"Easy, I have leverage."

Cuddy arched a brow.

"Ah, no, Gucci-moll, that would be telling." Sinclair waggled a finger at her and then extended her hand. "Do we have a deal?"

Cuddy heaved a sigh, tried to think of another way around this and couldn't.

"Deal." She gripped Sinclair's hand and shook firmly. If she knew one thing about House, it was that he was almost perverse about keeping his word.

"Okay, now shoo. Some of us have mayhem to construct." Sinclair waved her off and then spun away to clatter across the lobby floor and disappear through the clinic doors.

Cuddy worried her lip, for a second there, Sinclair had almost looked like she'd had horns.

Deal with the devil?

Cuddy heaved a sigh, she wouldn't put it past House to be related in some way.

**Sinister Scribe**

"Hi there, cutie!" Sinclair bounded into the exam room and House nearly fell off the bench because he twitched so violently in surprise.

"You're still here? I thought you were going to mud wrestle with Cuddy." He griped at her and Sinclair just smirked at him, shoving his feet out the way and hopping up on the empty end of the exam bench.

"And you didn't stay to watch? I'm insulted on Cuddy's behalf." Sinclair mocked him openly. "Now, you want to hear about the happy-fun-times I have planned for you or do you want it to be a surprise?"

"I hate surprises." Still sulking, but sitting up with an inkling of interest in his eyes now.

"Oooh, but you're gonna love this one." Sinclair patted his knee and grinned at him. "But you have to give a little to get a little."

He arched a brow at that.

"Ew!" She sidled a few inches away from him. "Not like THAT! At least, not with me." She lifted her hand as if to swat him, but changed her mind at the last moment, for which he was grateful.

"What DO I have to give then?"

"Good behaviour." She smirked at him. "At least, a good performance of said same."

"Why?"

"Because Cuddy has a board meeting about you later and doesn't want you screwing it up."

A scheming look immediately entered his eyes.

"Ah, no." Sinclair snatched his PSP out of his hands. "Eyes front, class. I'd have your full attention. Now, in order to get the reward, you gotta play nice, understand?" She waggled the PSP in front of him like it was a bone to a dog and House snatched it out of her hand, but she yanked it out of reach before he could.

"Is there a point to all your annoyance, or do you just take pleasure in my misery?"

"I like to think there's a little of both in there. Now, you going to listen or not?"

He folded his arms over his chest like a sulky boy. "I'm listening."

"Gooood boy." She smirked at him. "First of all; if we're good today, i.e. no breaking of the MRIs, no annoying of the patients and you do some_ actual_ clinic duty, then you're halfway to getting your prize, sound good so far?"

"No." Good lord did he practice 'petulant' in the mirror?

"Second of all; you tell me everything you know about Cuddy and then you get to have some fun."

He frowned at that. "Everything I know about Cuddy?"

"Sure, you're nuts for details and I need to know."

His head kicked back as he considered it. "What do I get for my reward?"

"Cuddy."

He went still at that.

"She's agreed to play a game, one game, tonight in the hospital after one day of _your_ good behaviour. One game in which she has agreed 'unconditional surrender' to the rules. You do as I say between now and five tonight and I let you be games master." Sinclair was spinning the PSP around in her palm.

House considered her a moment. Was she serious? Had she really gotten Cuddy to agree to unconditional surrender?

Hmm, a tempting offer, one he wasn't sure he wanted to pass up.

He leant forward and snatched the PSP from her hand. She looked up at him, surprised at the sharpness of his movements.

"One game?"

"One game." She agreed. "Rules are your bag, _if_ you come through on your end of the deal. You do as I tell you between now and five."

House tilted his head, thumb smoothing circles over the piano black of his PSP.

"Unconditional surrender?"

"That's what the lady said." Sinclair spread her hands, working very hard to keep her 'little stirrer' grin from her face.

"Alright, agreed. What we doing first, boss?"

Sinclair chuckled and hopped from the bench. She went to the exam door and threw it open.

"You'll see." She disappeared through the door and House had little choice but to throw himself off the exam table and follow her out. That little grin had left him feeling nervous but…

_Unconditional surrender._

How could he refuse?


	4. Chapter 4

**Uuumm….dunno where this one came from really…just wanted to post it for y'all before I crashed. Don't expect so much giggles and fun in this…it all went a bit twisted at some point.**

**It occurred to me that we needed a bad guy in this story so…yeah. I really don't know what i'm doing with this. I'm not entirely happy with it either but...meh, i care less and less. **

**Read and review. **

**Part IV**

Sinclair was…bored.

She sat in House's office, behind his desk, spinning around and around in his chair. She had already strewn his record collection messily across the floor, played several games of Mine-sweeper on his computer, deleted his porn collection, decided she hated _General Hospital, _turned his rubber band ball into a jumbled mess and emptied his stationary pot of pencils by throwing them point first up into the Styrofoam ceiling tiles a-la X-files. She sighed and spun back the other way.

Bored, bored, bored, bored and…BORED.

House had come through on his promise and told her everything he knew about Cuddy. Which had been a great deal, but little of any great value. Details, yeah, sure, you betchya, but there isn't much leverage to be had in people knowing ones bra-size and Sinclair would most definitely be in a position to know about that one. She dragged a hand through the flag of long hair that reached her jaw and idly thought about how weird her head felt without horns…and then about how weird it was that she saw having horns as _normal. _

Speaking of abnormal…it had taken her over three weeks to finally get round to watching the House episodes on Sidereel, which she could apparently still access over here.

The kiss had been interesting.

Not to mention infuriating.

If they were snogging, why the hell was she here? They were well on their way to resolving some of that tasty UST and, quite frankly, she had better things to be doing than babysitting a pair of grown adults that couldn't figure out that they wanted to shag like greased weasels. Sinclair gave a little growl to herself and pondered what her next plan of action should be.

She had already tipped the balance in House's favour, unconditional surrender on Cuddy's part had been one of her more sensual strokes of genius, putting House so firmly in the driver's seat was all well and good but…if they were going to end up together anyway…

A sudden, very devious, little grin played over Sinclair's face.

If they were going to end up together anyway then Sinclair didn't really need to do _anything. _In fact, she could just sit back and let nature take its course, but then, what would be the fun in that?

Now….giving Cuddy something to fight back with and create those fireworks that Sinclair did so love to see fly would be a LOT more interesting for semi-innocent bystanders such as herself.

Okay, so ALMOST semi-innocent bystanders.

Kind of.

Anyway, Sinclair bounded out of her seat and clicked to the doorway on her teetering heels, Cuddy's office and inherent mischief, her destination.

This was going to be FUN.

**$inister $cribe**

Cuddy swung the door to her office open and stopped short when her eyes caught on a pair of feet crossed at the ankle propped up on the polished wood. Her expression flattened out to a scrunched frown and she glared her way up the legs, past the hands playing cat's-cradle with a variety of elastic bands strewn together and all the way up to the absorbed expression of…what was her name again?

God, if she wasn't being harassed by one House, it was another one.

"Can I help you?" Cuddy's icy tone implied that the only helping she was inclined to give was in the frog-marching out of the door variety.

"Wrong question."

Cuddy blinked and realised that the asshole gene must be genetic. She sighed and entered her office proper, shutting the door behind her with a quiet click. She sashayed across the room and stopped on the wrong side of her desk to glare across it at…Sinclair. That was her name!

"What?" She enunciated with a practiced snap. She had been dealing with bitchy board members all day and dealing with a pain-in-the-ass-obscure-relative-of-a-pain-in-the-ass-diagnostician was not her idea of fun. Her temper was beginning to show.

"I said, you're asking the wrong question." Sinclair snapped the bands over her fingers and finally looked up at Cuddy. "You need to get better at this if you're going to win."

That got her attention. She arched a brow. "Win?"

"Yeah, win. Remember, it's games night." One of the bands goes flying off her intricately twisted fingers and they both turned to watch where it landed. Sinclair's eyebrows rose as if she was surprised that something within her grasp would just careen out of control but then the little smile she gave made Cuddy think that perhaps she had planned it all along and liked the destruction. That made her shift her weight uneasily.

"How could I forget?" Cuddy asked wryly.

"Aaaaye…" She drew the word out long, Scottish accent slipping to the fore and then melting back again when she continued. "It occurs to me that…dearest _cousin_ Greggus Obnoxiocus is given far too much of an advantage when it comes to you at times and…that you relent with him far too often."

Blue fire snapped in Cuddy's eyes and her rage was quite something to see. Sinclair could identify with House's need to inspire it so often. She was by no means a lesbian but…for a dame like Lisa Cuddy it wouldn't be much of a stretch to be converted.

"Now, now, let's not go getting all riled." Sinclair pinged another elastic band off into the ether of an office corner. "Have a seat and we'll talk tactics."

Cuddy's eyes narrowed, the carrot being dangled in front of her was tempting but how did she know that Sinclair was really on her side?

"Sit, Cuddy-kins, you're looming and it's an unattractive quality unless you're a hot bloke interested in doing me against the kitchen cabinets."

Cuddy blinked and sat down before that colourful image was added to.

"Oh, please, like you haven't heard worse from Mister Fun-bags Fascination!" Sinclair gave a little glare but then her expression swung back to congenial as if she had never been irritated. "Now, tonight, when the good doctor has you right where he thinks he wants you, what do you plan to do?" Sinclair wasn't looking at her, instead focused on her elastic bands that she was currently trying to meld into the semblance of a demonic face. Cuddy huffed out a breath.

"I hadn't really thought about it." Which was true, she'd been a little busy trying to convince the board just to keep doctor House on for another year. It was her annual thing and it took all of her attention…which meant that House was allowed a little more rope with which to hang her with and was kind of counter-productive for all concerned.

"First mistake!" Sinclair looked at her like she had just suggested that, yes, the moon really was pink, the sky was, indeed, green and that the Twilight series really was the best set of books around, sparkly vampires included. "Oy, how you survived beyond season two is beyond me…right, I see we are going to have to start right at the very beginning…" Sinclair tilted back in the chair and scrutinised the ceiling for a moment.

"Whenever you're ready." Cuddy drawled, half amused and all annoyed at this little…reprobate that had invaded her office in place of the much larger one that usually did.

At least she had kept her word. She hadn't heard a peep out of House all day…which was both improving and worsening her state of nerves. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop and she had the feeling it was going to be shaped like an anvil and loosed from a great height.

"Give me a minute, I'm plotting. You see, usually, by this point, I've thrown you both into a completely insane situation that would never happen and you've both snogged each other's tonsils out, liked it immensely, don't want to admit it, at least on of you is in denial and the other has jacked off in the shower…the 'real' world can be a bugger sometimes can't it?"

Somewhere between 'snogging tonsils out' and 'jacking off in the shower' Cuddy's mouth had dropped open, an appalled expression had appeared on her face and she had lost the ability to wipe it off.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, I've been sent from a parallel world where you're fictional by the god of love to make sure that you and House finally admit you're feelings for one another and THEN I realised it's all about to become canon anyway so…why bother my bum about it?" Sinclair sat forward and spoke conversationally. Cuddy was simply too stunned to speak. She didn't know if this was scripted as some sort of elaborate prank or…if the girl was genuinely touched in the head. "Now, don't go looking at me like I'm some sort of loon you wish you'd never met, I get enough of that from my mother. Everything I said is true but you don't really need to believe it and, more importantly, you don't really need to care and why?"

"Why?" Cuddy echoed faintly. She had the feeling that she'd just been sent tumbling head long into the rabbit hole and this skirt was far to tight to balloon out like a parachute and save her from becoming a meat pancake on the checkerboard tile flooring. Now, was Sinclair the Mad Hatter, the March Hare or the Cheshire Cat?

Sinclair grinned.

Definitely the cat.

Cuddy should have known really, all cats are sociopaths.

"Three words for ya; Lev-A-Rej." Sinclair looked pleased with herself, still with that feline grin on her face, and sat back in Cuddy's plush chair to fold her hands behind her head, elbows akimbo. "Ask me how. It's genius I say. Genius."

Nope, she wasn't insane, just more like House than Cuddy had originally realised. She felt her world tilting back onto a more even keel. Just humour her, she thought quickly, maybe that will make her go away.

"How?"

"My God you're monosyllabic today." Sinclair pinged a rubbed band past Cuddy's shoulder and then removed the others from her fingers before stuffing them all in the cup on Cuddy's desk. She spent a moment or two reshuffling the arrangement of photographs there and huffed out a breath.

"How?" Cuddy asked again when it appeared that Sinclair had forgotten she was there.

"Oh, yeah, kiss him."

"You are such a double agent." Cuddy narrowed her eyes at the little Scottish invader.

"Yes, but on your side, not his. For the moment at least. Consider me trouble given form. At the moment I'm on your side and it would behove you to not seize this advantage while it was within your grasp." Another Cheshire Cat grin.

Cuddy made an abbreviated motion to rise but Sinclair leaning back in her chair and watching her intently stopped her more effectively than if she had lunged across the desk and grabbed a hold of her by her arm. She found herself sinking back down into the chair, not quite believing that she was really considering it but…the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

"Alright, I'll bite."

"I believe I said 'kiss', but if you really want to…"

"WHAT," Cuddy spoke over her firmly. "Do you know?"

"Almost everything but, pertaining to you and Housicle, that's quite a large section of my font of useless information for a start, there's this unspoken…THING between the two of you." Sinclair gave a little curl of her lip and a dismissive hand gesture like she had grown tired of the banality of it all. "If said thing were to suddenly become, oh, say SPOKEN, then that would be…detrimental to House's world view. In fact, if I have my way the little thing will be up and running around in very small circles screaming hysterically." Sinclair looked up at the ceiling and tapped her fingers against her chin for a moment. "Heh." Obviously the thought amused her more than a little.

"I have no idea what you just said." Cuddy admitted coldly.

"Ugh…remember, Sin, Americans plus subtlety equals Fail-at-life." Sinclair scrubbed a hand over her face. "Okay, lemme break it down for you. What is the ONE thing that House has always liked about you? The thing that keeps you in his life. The thing that makes him need you."

"House doesn't need me."

"Yeah, right, and you don't need him. Whatever, we'll wade out of De Nile later." Sinclair sliced her hand sideways through the air. Cut that and leave it on the editing room floor. "Think, what ties him to you?"

"My breasts?" Cuddy spoke wryly.

"Okay, better, closer and the man definitely is a cleavage connoisseur but…" Sinclair raised her hand up as if wanting Cuddy to bid higher. Cuddy blinked at her blankly and Sinclair heaved a put-upon sigh. "Do I have to do everything myself…? You're stubborn!" She snapped at Cuddy. "Muleheaded. Steel willed. A pain in his ass. A thorn in his side. You needle him, you screech at him, you make scrunchy hyena face at him."

"I get the picture."

"You sure? I've got more. God forbid you not be GETTING any of this, I've wasted enough of my damn time on you two hard-headed idiots as it is."

Cuddy frowned at her. Beginning to become honestly offended.

"ANY-way!" Sinclair cut that with her hand again and sent it to the editing floor. She seemed to do that a lot. "You're his type. He even likes you somewhere down in that twisted little heart of his, hell, more than likes you and why? Because you INTEREST him, because, occasionally, you gain the upper hand." Sinclair looked at Cuddy as if she were a particularly dim child. "But that…is beside the point. Just something for you to mull over. Tonight, you have to put him on the defensive and you have a secret weapon." Sinclair propped her chin on her hand and looked at Cuddy like only a co-conspirator can. She raised her brows when Cuddy remained silent.

"Kissing him?" Cuddy said at length.

"YUS, ladies and germs she's got it. Johnnie, tell her what she's won!" Sinclair threw her hands up in the air and crowed to an imaginary audience. Okay, so maybe not quite as sane as Cuddy had hoped. This still ranked up their with her most insane conversations ever and funny how the top five were now all with House or people related to him. She slapped her palms down on the desk and grinned almost ferally in her excitement. "Yup, mack on him. It's his kryptonite."

"I kiss him and it's poisonous." Cuddy tried hard not to sound insulted at the prospect.

"No, ye twit, it shorts out his brain long enough for YOU to take the advantage." Sinclair laced her fingers together and settled her chin on the lattice with a beatific smile on her face. "You ever see CJ and Danny on West Wing?" She frowned then. "Forget it, you were a hooker in West Wing."

"Hey! I am not a hooker. Why does everybody say that?" Cuddy glanced about the office as if suddenly expecting someone to answer and realised she was going off the deep end too a little bit.

"Oh, it was a very high end hooker…and much better than the lesbian you played in the other thing and the transvestite in Ally McBeal….bit of a headslap moment for me when I put two and two together and came out with Pi R squared with that one…ANYWAY, back on subject!"

That had been another sentence that Cuddy was just going to ignore for the rest of her natural life and maybe a bit beyond that. She could do without the aggravation.

"Point is, sweet-cheeks, that if you kiss House he won't know how to react…you did it before and he got all fumbly and awkward. He's still awkward in fact. He's all limpy about and not knowing what to do with himself. He's asking for advice! Can you imagine? House asking people advice?"

"I don't think my cognitive powers are that great." Cuddy murmured, increasingly under the impression that she wasn't actually required for this conversation to take place. Sinclair hardly seemed aware she was there at times.

Talking to Sinclair was the conversational equivalent of an outer body experience.

"Don't talk like that, I'm sure you're very clever….in your own little way."

At Cuddy's glare, Sinclair couldn't help to elaborate.

"So you're a scary over-achiever who can't admit what she really wants because deep down you think you don't really deserve it and you kind of pinned all your hope of happiness on something you knew was possible that you would never get which makes me think that you kind of don't really want to be happy and nobody WANTS to be miserable except for a certain diagnostician…which brings us back to you not admitting what you really want." Sinclair suddenly became very still and held Cuddy's gaze without flinching.

"What is it about you people that you feel the need to analyse?" Cuddy gritted, on the verge of having Sinclair bodily removed from the hospital.

"We're good at it. You should see me with the people I REALLY know, talk about familiarity breeding contempt. I haven't had a friend that lasted beyond two years yet." She spoke in a kind of sotto voice that caught Cuddy off-guard. She had somehow expected self-deprication and had instead gotten…honesty. It was a little disturbing.

"What happened to 'everybody lies'?" Cuddy countered.

"Oh, they do. Of course they do. I'm actually a very accomplished liar. One of the reasons people can't trust me but I have this nasty habit of telling people the truths they least want to hear."

"Why?"

"Because people are idiots and I've nothing to lose by telling them the truth. Life is too short for me to hold hands and wipe noses. They want that they should get a dog…but enough about me. We were talking about you and him."

"There is no 'me and him'." Cuddy enforced a little desperately.

"Course there is, you forget, I've seen the previews for episode ten and can we say…unsubtle much?" Sinclair raised her eyebrows, begging Cuddy to refute it, which Cuddy might have tried to do had she had any earthly idea of what the hell was going on right at that moment. "I mean…moving into his office…it's either very desperate or very clever, can't decide which, depends of course if you're trying to screw with him or you're unaware that you're trying to screw with him, in which case…"

"Enough!" Cuddy snapped, her brain needing to rest from thinking-out-loud overload. "God, you're all the same!" Cuddy reached over and snatched a rubber band from Sinclair. She began to twist it over her fingers again and again. Round and round. "Start making sense or…leave."

"I like how you still want to know what I have to offer." Sinclair gave another one of those moggy grins. "Okay, let's get down to bid-ness." Sinclair sat forward and lent on her elbows. "I'm not positive, but I suspect, that smoochage between Doctor McCane-boy is not something he can handle."

"What makes you think I can handle it?" The words were out of Cuddy's mouth before she could stop them and she immediately wanted to face-plant on her desk just to avoid the reality that she was playing into this.

"You're female and, by laws of the universe, are more capable in all manner of things than the dumber sex."

Cuddy gave her a faint look of disdain.

"Oh, is your head up your ass for the warmth? I'm not a man-hater, I just happen to accept their limitations…plus it annoys my dad to be pseudo-feminist." Sinclair smirked. Having no real concept of how close she was sailing to the wind of Cuddy's stormfront temper. "Back on track. Up till now, you and House have had this kind of…impasse between you." She picked up a stapler, a hole punch and a sheet of paper. She rummaged a moment and made a small sound of triumph when she found a permanent marker. "Now, I can see how you two might have gotten stuck in a rut…instead of just rutting like NORMAL people." Sinclair was half speaking to herself as she scribbled 'Cuddles' on the hole punch and 'Pimp-stick-Man' on the stapler. Cuddy craned her neck to read and then scowled at the graffiti on her office supplies. She briefly considered yelling at Sinclair for it, but the old tried and true method of picking ones battles when it came to a House reminded her to stay quiet. "I mean, he IS a hard guy to like and YOU'RE a hard woman to keep up with and you're both so wrapped up in your own little worlds that it's real hard to just get the tiniest bit of overlap." Sinclair set the stapler and the hole-punch beside each other on the paper and drew two circles around them that overlapped slightly. She coloured in the ellipse between them with a squeaking of the marker. "Like so." She tapped at it and glanced up to make sure Cuddy was following. Cuddy was just staring at her.

Insane.

" You're crazy." She finally blurted. "Off your rocker. Without trolley. Three fries short of a happy meal. Not all the colours in the Crayola box…."

"I get it." Sinclair informed her flatly.

"I have more." Cuddy snapped. "I don't need a diagram and House and I…can't BE house and I. There is no…THING!"

"Of course there is. I have a diagram." Sinclair tapped it officially. "Now siddown and I'll tell you how this works unless you want to continue to rudely interrupt me?"

"Screw this." Cuddy muttered and headed for the door.

Sinclair sighed. "I'd hoped not to do this, Cuddles." Sinclair reached over the computer, waggled the mouse and then tapped out a ricochet of keys that clacked lightening fast under her practiced hands.

The doors, the ones that Cuddy had been about to storm out of…disappeared.

One second they were there and the next…gone. Just smooth terracotta wallpapered wall. Distinct lack of door-age going on there. Cuddy wheeled around and saw Sinclair sitting at the desk, hands poised over the keys.

"Want to see what else I can do or…do you want to keep a hold of your free will?"

"How…?" Cuddy looked back at the wall. "What?"

"You're not going anywhere until I'm sure that you can pull this off." Sinclair said and tapped a few more keys. Cuddy found herself crossing back to the chair and sitting down on it. With no conscious effort of doing so. In fact, she'd been trying to stop.

"You're my ticket home. The pair of you. Now, I like you Cuddy, I really do, but if you don't sit down and listen to me and FINALLY be honest with yourself and with him…then I'll tear this world apart at the seems with nothing more than a HP computer and a word document."

Cuddy looked at Sinclair and then back at the door. Or the wall where the door had been.

"You really expect me to believe…?"

"Don't waste my time with this bullshit." Sinclair snapped. "You know fine well that I'm capable of everything I just said. The door was proof enough for you." Sinclair double tapped on the 'return' key with a sound like a pistol being cocked and looked expectantly at Cuddy.

"The choice is yours Cuddy. I suggest you make it quickly before my patience runs out."


	5. Chapter 5

**SPOILERS FOR EPISODE TEN-LET THEM EAT CAKE**

**In a vague kind of way, i don't think i ever explicitely say anything...except for maybe 'fuck', 'shit', 'bastard' and variations along the same theme. Extreme langauge and rantings in this one, kids so you have been warned. **

**Um...yeah, parts of that episode really pissed me off, but i still think it was one of the best ones ever written and i like the new Goslings better than the old Ducklings any day of the week and then twice again on Sundays (where DID that saying come from?). **

**Aye, so, i was gonna update House of Dresden 2...started to write it and everything but then i watched the episode and came over all inspired and here we are. **

**Off to write HoD Part II chapter 11 now. Ciao, bambinos!!!**

**Part V**

House sat in clinic exam room number three. He judged it, by prior experience, to be the best of the rooms. He didn't know why, maybe it had something to do with three being a lucky number, either way, he liked room three. He had his legs propped up on the exam bench, crossed at the ankles, his tongue caught between his teeth in concentration as he played Crash of the Titans, fifth level on his PSP_, die fiends of the strangely graphiced variety,_ he had been on his best behaviour all day…in his own fashion. He had been marginally polite to the three clinic patients he had deigned to see and had otherwise kept himself to himself. A wicked grin spread over his mouth. After all, it was better to keep some of himself to share later on tonight. Wouldn't want Cuddy to feel unloved.

Hold on, un….loved?

BANG!

"You…IDIOT!"

_WHACK!_

Oh, Sinclair was here.

"To think I EVER wasted my time frigging well writing about you, you sorry lump of idiotic genius!"

_WHACK!_

House glared at her warningly after the second blow to the head. What on earth was she harping on about? He had to admit she had lungs that were almost as impressive as her cleavage, he didn't know she could belt like that, but if she was going to verbally accost him, he'd at least like to know the why of it.

"FIRST there's the odd office moment that you managed to rather SPECTACULARLY ruin, btw, and THEN you go the sweet and romantic route just when she's thinking the worst about you, which is good, because you know, she needs to have a little more faith in you than is current but then, what do you do?"

House just looked at her. This was completely beyond him. He had the feeling she'd been downloading from something called Sidereel again. He'd tried to get on the website earlier but had been none to kindly informed by a little grey box that he didn't have the authorisation (on multiple levels) to view the contents of the page and no amount of hacking and trying to discern Sinclair's password had yielded results.

"You." WHACK. "Go." WHACK. "And hook up with." WHACKITY-WHACK. "YOUR THREE DOLLAR HOOKER!"

_WHACK-WHACK-SMACK-BIFF! _

"Ow." Sinclair noted when his hand manacled around her wrist and he rubbed the back of his head with the other. He was going to be lucky if he'd escaped that without a concussion.

"Enough with the beatings!" He growled at her. "I don't know what I've done to deserve it, and I probably do, but the chance to defend myself is afforded to even murderers. Feel like enlightening me?"

"You are the dumbest smart person I know!" She didn't seem in any danger of winding down any time soon and her volume was impressive if nothing else. "She was going to ask you out! She offered smooches!" She threw up her hands and began to pace the office. "But no! Instead of being a human being and actually admitting that you like her, in fact, MORE than like her, what do you do?"

House raised his brows. "What did I do?" He was genuinely curious. It might be quite interesting to find out what he had apparently done wrong in this little scene that had evidently happened only in Sinclair's skewed view of things.

"YOU GROPED HER, YOU IMBECILE!!" Sparks were coming off her. Literally, she had a eerie kind of golden glow coming off her skin tinged with red. House took a step back and lifted his cane to plant it on the floor between them. She levelled a finger at him and he had to steel himself against his instinctive flinch. "And not the good kind of mutual groping either! NO! Because as-per-fucking-usual, YOU have to go and be a fucking coward and do something to push someone away rather than act like a frigging human BEING!"

House could only blink at her. This was actually really impressive. The sheer amount of vitriol she could summon forth at will. He knew Cuddy's temper was impressive but this was truly something to behold. He tilted his head to the side and tuned out the assault on his ear drums so as better to observe her. Her arms flew up and her hands splayed and contorted in their own spastic kind of sign language that he was beginning to pick up the translations of. She paced and bounced on her toes with too damn much energy to hold in. She pointed at him a lot. An inordinate amount of blame-type pointing he thought. Whatever she thought he had done really couldn't have been that bad.

"You're not listening to a word I say, are you?" She suddenly went slack as her temper left her and some kind of long standing fatigue swept over her frame. She rubbed at her temples and then pressed the heels of her hands hard in against her head as if trying to hold her skull together. "And now I have a headache…any minute now I'm going to start bleeding." She grumbled.

House looked at her askance and opened his mouth to make some kind of lewd and inappropriate comment when the door flew open for the second time in as many minutes and he was confronted by yet another irate female.

"What the hell is going on in here? What's with the yelling?!" Cuddy planted her hands on her hips and looked between them.

"You do realise that you're kind of stomping over your own argument by yelling yourself, right?" Sinclair turned her head and arms and peered at Cuddy beyond her elbow. House could practically see the waves of discomfort pulsing through her body. She'd gone white as a sheet and was trembling ever so slightly.

"Well, when you said you could keep him in line I didn't know that the correlating effect would be that you would lose control of yourself."

"Oh, bite me, you're both impossible and you've given me a migraine. Ass kickery has been dealt out for MUCH less, believe me." Sinclair grumbled and laced her fingers over the top of her head, clenching her hands together until her knuckles whitened. House frowned, that really didn't look healthy.

"Both of you just…shut up!" Cuddy snapped, evenly distributing her ire between them. "You're scaring the patients."

"You mean the idiots." Sinclair and House intoned together and then glanced at each other with a scowl.

"And _I'm _impossible?" Cuddy put a hand to her chest and demanded incredulously of Sinclair.

"Well, yeah, you're not without blame Miss I'm-too-damn-wimpy-to-just-go-with-the-flow-call-his-bluff-and-goddamn-GLOMP-HIM!" Sinclair ranted again.

"What _are_ you talking about?" Cuddy frowned at her.

"Did you miss that lesson in Lust 101?" Sinclair had her eyes screwed shut by this point and she was now noticeably trembling. Pain splitting her skull with the tiny people and the jack-hammers trying to escape from just in front of her ears. "When the guy that loves you grabs a hold of you, telling you it's the next FRIGGING STEP, you grab BACK! I know how you both feel about each other, hell everybody does, it's just that one of you has to go first and--mmf!"

House clapped his hand over Sinclair's mouth and grinned at Cuddy in that way that stewardesses do when engine two is on fire.

"'Scuze us, we'll just be leaving now." He hauled Sinclair up off the floor and tucked her under one arm. She wasn't as heavy as he expected and he managed to man-handle her out of the door.

"Oh, boy, you did NOT just shush me!" Sinclair snapped at him when he had to remove his hand from her mouth to snatch up his cane and hobble past Cuddy as fast as he could gimp.

Cuddy just stared at them, mouth hanging open until she noticed and clapped it shut with an audible click, as both House and his cargo garnered considerable stares as they meandered out of the clinic as quickly as House could muster.

Sinclair continued to rant the entire way.

Loudly.

And at length.

"You are DEAD when you put me down! I am going to punt your gimping arse into next week and then kick you again on THURSDAY!" She kicked and flailed wildly but apparently desperation had lent House a new strength and he held onto her clear to the elevator, stabbing the button frantically to escape. Sinclair had apparently forgotten that she needed to breathe and continued her unabated abuse of him with her usual volume.

"Death! Violent pincery SPOON death!" Her fists beat at his back and her legs kicked wildly.

Nurse Brenda, who nobody had seen in a while, stopped to stare and even noted down some of the more colourful phrases on her clipboard to remind House of at a later date. She sipped from her red mug of coffee and had a small smirk on her face as she watched the drama unfold.

"I am going to hook you up to a car battery by your 'NADS, ye freaking reprobate. THEN machete the trouser cane off till your known as House MD _Castrate!!_ World renowned mascot of the ERECTILE DYSFUNTION SOCIETY!" She squirmed harder and ignored it when her nose began to bleed. The blood dripping down her chin and staining her teeth seemed oddly fitting with her apoplectic enraged rant. She was definitely out for blood, the fact that her own had ended up being spilled didn't seem to bother her. "You're on my LIST! And I mean the first one. The REALLY bad one! You will RUE the day that you ever met me. IMMINENT RUE-AGE!"

Finally, thankfully, the elevator arrived and House tossed her inside, before pinning her against the back wall with his cane and following her inside.

The doors shut behind them and Cuddy found herself standing beside Brenda without remembering moving her feet to get there. Apparently that happened with plot devices.

"So…" Brenda sipped from her red mug which said on the side 'If you can see this you can thank fan-service'. "Things are going well then?"

**$inister $cribe**

"She really said all that?" Wilson looked at House, hands still occupied with trying to stem the flow of blood from Sinclair's nose. He looked at her beyond the red stained tissues. "You really said that?"

"No, he'd making id up." Sinclair spoke as best she could, which was not very well when someone had their hand over her face and kept insisting that she tilt her head back. Which she point blank refused to do. He was a doctor, didn't he KNOW that when you tilted your head back during a nose bleed that the blood just went the other way and slid down your throat.

She might write fan fiction about vampires but that didn't mean she WAS one.

Cretin.

"She can be quite vocal when she wants to." House said tightly and popped a vicodin.

"Fugging addict." Sinclair snapped in a blocked kind of way.

"Pain problem!" House sniped back at her.

"No, wiwpowew pwobwem, youw weg doen't huwt ad much ady mow."

"Do you EVER speak Earth English?" House looked at her askance.

Sinclair's only reply was to flip him the bird with exaggerated dignity.

"What were you ranting about anyway? What pissed you off so much?" Wilson cautiously removed the tissue from Sinclair's face and frowned in concern when it continued to bleed with no sign of abating. "Is this usual?"

"What, me ranting at some fuckwit (or two fuckwits as it may turn out) that deserve it or haemorrhaging from the nose violently and at length?" She snatched the tissue off him and smeared messily at her face. "Oh for fuck's sake." She cursed quietly.

"Umm…both?"

"Yes." Sinclair replied. "It's like a pressure valve, every time my system gets too blocked up with too much….STUFF then everything gets too tight and it needs to be let out somehow." She shrugged and pinched the bride of her nose with one hand while holding yet more tissue to over her mouth and nose with the other.

"Now, would that be your temper or the migraine/nose bleed thing?" House asked, genuinely intrigued. He'd never heard of somebody's body reacting like that. Though it did make an odd kind of sense.

"Pig one." Sinclair said stuffily. "Ad to answer youw, oh fug it!" She pulled the tissue from her face and let her nose just bleed for a minute. "To answer yer earlier question; it was gimp-boy and Cuddy-patra Queen of De-Nile that set me off."

"How?" Wilson handed her fresh tissues and held out the bin for her to trash the other ones.

"Speak and die." House growled.

"I can't die here, oh lanky and annoying." Sinclair snapped at him and mopped at her face. It really did SUCK to be her sometimes. "As far as you're concerned I am a demi-god…that apparently can't stop bleeding from the fucking nose!" She swiped irritated at her face. "Somewhere it's snowing."

House and Wilson just shared a confused glance.

"So, what's your plan for tonight?" Sinclair continued to bail her face out of blood.

House looked at her blankly.

"Well, Wilson is taking me out to dinner, coz there ain't no way, no how I am being in your apartment when you talk Cuddy into coming back to bed with you." She sighed and took more tissues from Wilson. He ripped open another box.

"Shouldn't you have bled out by now?"

"It's like temporal displacement. I can't be here, not this directly and not for this long. I'm lucky the worst thing that's happened have been nose bleeds." Sinclair swept it away.

"I'm talking Cuddy into bed? I was just gonna…" As usual, House focused on what interested him most.

"Okay, this is how it plays out with you two. First there is chemistry, then there are arguments, then shtupping then the inevitable -if dysfunctional- declarations of undying devotion." Sinclair continued to wipe at her face while Wilson put on concerned face and tilted her face up to the light.

"You're colouring's not good."

"Don't be mean. My colouring is fabulous. Of Italian extraction apparently. Well, if you ask anyone on the street."

"I'm not declaring undying anything about Cuddy." House insisted. "Not unless it's an erection."

"Okay, that was just predictable." Sinclair snapped at him and was relieved to see that the bloody Niagara Falls from her face was beginning to ebb. "And yes you will."

"Will not." House pouted at her.

"Don't fuck with me, boy. I can write you into places and positons that would colour your hair. I write stuff with a twist on them. What if the standard hurt/comfort was Cuddy comforting HOUSE after a brutal violation?"

House jerked back from her. Her tone had been…sinister and the accompanying smile bloodied like she had been eating raw flesh.

He could almost feel the bites.

"Hey, lay off him, he doesn't work the way the rest of us do." Wilson defended his friend. He didn't know what she was talking about, being able to actually bring things like that about, but she had seemed to genuinely want to hurt House. Which, while being a fairly common phenomenon, Wilson did his best to diffuse whenever possible.

"Oh, like I'd ever DO it." Sinclair gingerly wiped at her face and paused to see if she was still bleeding. She smirked a little when she appeared to have finally stopped. "I can't even bring myself to write about miscarriage." She gave an exaggerated shudder. "Angst fans, fuckin' weirdos."

"So, back to your plan, or lack thereof." Sinclair looked at House who, for once, looked uncomfortable at being put under the spotlight. At his stuttering she sighed and rubbed at her eyes under her glasses. "I really DO have to do everything myself, don't I?" She puffed out her cheeks on a long suffering sigh. She sat back in her chair and folded one leg over the other, lacing her fingers together on her lap. "I mean, really, how can somebody so smart be so obnoxiously stupid?"

"Hey!" House started but she cut him off with a slicing motion of her hand which apparently went through his vocal chords. House opened his mouth and shut it several times, an increasing look of panic crossing his face when he realised what she had just robbed him of.

"And the award for Best Supporting Goldfish Role goes too…" Sinclair smirked mockingly and then snapped her fingers.

"WHAAA--oh." House cut himself off from his yelling when he could suddenly actually vocalise once more.

"Can you teach me how to do that?" Wilson spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Sinclair.

"Maybe if you continue to be funny instead of annoying." Sinclair patted the back of his hand and looked around House. She snapped her fingers and a chair leapt forward, catching House on the back of the knees and toppling him into it. She sat forward conspiriationally and her grin had a suddenly wicked tilt to it.

"Now, House-mu-boy, you do exactly what I tell you and, with a little help from my scene setting, we both get what we want and I'm home before the clock strikes madnight and I turn into a disintegrating pumpkin." She looked between them when it suddenly occurred to them that it might happen. "Oh, not really, you noobs." She sighed and then waited for House's reaction.

"Tell me what I want then?" House looked at her a little expectantly and a lot mockingly.

"Don't talk, just listen. You don't have to confirm this, but don't rush to deny it either." Sinclair held up a warning finger that made it perfectly clear she fully expected to be obeyed. "You want…what everybody else wants, just not in the same fashion. The wife, the big house, the squalling kids, white picket fence and slobbering dogs…all that crap bores you and understandably so but you still want it. You want family, you've got it in Wilson and your mom, the big house is your dragon's lair of an apartment, your white picket fence your baby grand and the ever faithful dog part is played in this production by the rattling of a vicodin bottle but the wife…?"

Sinclair tilted her head and enjoyed the uncomfortable look on House's face. She had taken a gamble analysing him like this. She hadn't expected to be so damn right but she was running with it while she had it.

"The wife has only ever been played by one person, since college, since she first challenged you and you named her Party-pants and I'll give y'all a clue here, her second name ain't Werner."

"Now you're just talking out your ass." House tried to scoff and looked at Wilson like his friend would back him up. Wilson was looking at him with a new light in his eyes though. It looked an awful lot like scheming collusion and House didn't think that boded over well for him.

"It's pronounced 'arse' and you know I'm not. You did this to yourself, House. You let everyone go from your life but her and that's because you _know_ that she's the only one you fit with. Maybe not happily ever after kind of fit, but definitely interesting, definitely moreish and definitely _right." _Sinclair wouldn't look away from him and it was only sheer stubborn pride that kept House looking right back at her.

"Deny it if you can." She mocked him gently.

"All of it's bullshit." House said automatically.

"Everybody lies, House, isn't that what you always say?"

"Damn, she's amazing." Wilson's brows were migrating to his hairline at having somebody actually render House off-kilter.

"Oh, honey, that's what they all say." Sinclair patted his cheek and then turned back to House. "So, boy chick, what's it gonna be? My way, or the eternal damnation of shivery loneliness that sucks out your soul through the eyeballs?"

House looked like a man sentenced to execution and scrubbed a hand over his face before finally saying in a quiet voice.

"What did you have in mind?"


End file.
